Something Nice to Say?

Wow.

I am almost loathe to post a nice entry.

Especially about a megacorporation. Oh well.

Last spring I won an already-registered with Cingular Motorola Razr cell phone and $100 in pre-paid airtime from 94.7, and that was great because I didn't have a cell phone at the time.

Anyway, I thought this was pretty nifty. Moreover, pretty nifty since I the last cell phone I had was with Cingular, and just 10 short months after I purchased my fancy Sony-Ericsson, they purchased AT&T's cell service and made it clear my phone would have to be replaced. So I felt they owed me one.

Well, back to the story.

I picked up a 'powered by fastcard' pre-paid refill at Fred Meyer, and when I went to recharge my phone, there was a message: "your account will expire march something '07, and you cannot add airtime after january 01, '07. Please contact Cingular to upgrade..."

Why, I was halfway to the gun shop, I tell you.

I tried to find out WTF online, and of course, that was a waste of my time.

So yesterday I walked over to the Cingular office downtown here.

I walked right up to the 'service' counter, and the kind people behind the counter asked me what I might need. I told them what had happened, and they were quizzical. More details, still not sure. Let's look that account up. Hmm.

We did sort it out- 94.7 had activated the phone for me under their blanket account, and that account plan had expired- it wasn't that I had to get a new phone, as I had feared, it was just that I either had to endure a possibly futile attempt at phone-based support, or get a new phone number.

I don't use the phone that much, so, I went for the new number.

The guy who helped me was quick, knowledgeable, polite, friendly, and he took care of all that, even got my phone numbers migrated across... now that's service.

I'd say "great job, cingular!", except this was a case of "great job, guy who gives a crap about the quality of the work he does!"

Oh, and avoid the blue-and-orange Fastcard/cingular cards which Fred Meyer sells- so says the cute rectangle-glasses wearing girl who calls everyone 'sir'.